MANDATE MAILBAG
Dear Board of Directors,
I am begging you to please enact a mask mandate. To say that I am outraged at your rescinding of the mandate is an understatement.
I am an RN for Kootenai Health. To say that we feel unsupported and taken for granted is an understatement. You seem to think that we can simply bear the consequences for your irresponsible actions. No thought given to the burden and stress that healthcare providers experience not to mention the lives lost!
I would much prefer having our beautiful community make the national news for our quality of life instead of for the unbelievable and irresponsible actions of our Health District. We are the laughing stock of the nation right now, except that it isn’t funny at all.
Please do the right thing.
JULIE CRANDALL,
RN, BSN, OCN
My family vehemently opposes a mask mandate. If people are scared of a virus which 99.8% of people survive, they should stay home and order groceries or meals to be delivered.
THE ARMSTRONGS
Coeur d’Alene
I thought we were living in a free country. I am sure wearing a mask and following the guidelines of the health professionals does help slow down the spread of the China virus. But it should be up to the individual to decide.
This is coming from someone who had the virus and did not enjoy being sick for two and a half weeks and I don’t wish what I had on anyone. So all you people living in fear, stay out of the public and leave the rest of us alone. By the way, Trump is our President and I hope to God he is for four more years.
MIKE MARIS
Coeur d’Alene
Let me appeal to you on a level that hopefully you will all understand. The City has the power of Eminent Domain. Eminent Domain is used to acquire property or to legislate for the greater public good. If you are unaware of Eminent Domain or the processes therein, please do some research. You have the opportunity to do the right thing.
In the absence of common sense and the following of scientifically verifiable facts, the city has the responsibility to see to the greater public good. Do your civic and elected responsible duty to enforce the use of masks in all public and business spaces for the greater common good.
This has nothing to do with how people “feel” or the pressure that is exerted upon your offices by an ignorant public that presses for liberty over the greater common good. Do the hard thing, the things you were elected to do, to assure that we all, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or other, have a tomorrow to make this City great. Get creative, think beyond binary solutions, and do the right thing. Please.
GEOFF RINEHART CEO & President
Communitas International
Pastor
Chi Rho Community
Panhandle Health loosened its mask mandate after receiving a letter cosigned by Senator Mary Souza and her fellow Republican lawmakers Senators Steve Vick, Don Cheatham, and Carl Crabtree, and Representatives Ron Mendive, Tim Remington, Tony Wisniewski, Vito Barbieri, Jim Addis, Sage Dixon, and Paul Shephard.
They said citizens considered the mandate “highly upsetting” violation of the Constitution, and a bad law. But Idahoans routinely accept restrictions on their behavior to protect public safety. Think seatbelts and speed limits. No one would argue that these are bad laws or that they don’t work. Similarly, a mask mandate is not a bad law. It works if people abide by it.
The high rate of COVID-19 in the White House should serve as a warning to all of us that anyone can get this deadly disease, especially those who don’t take it seriously enough to wear a mask, wash their hands, and practice social distancing. To the extent that Senator Souza’s letter encourages people to disregard the mask mandate, it facilitates the spread of COVID-19 in Kootenai County. This in turn threatens public health and the vitality of our local economy.
The Kootenai County Democratic Central Committee urges Senator Souza, who has degrees in both nursing and health education, and is the Vice Chair of the Idaho Senate Health and Welfare Committee, to support policies that sustain the health and safety of her community.
The KCDCC further urges Panhandle Health to ignore political considerations and proceed on its own to ensure public safety.
EVAN KOCH
Chair, KCDCC
I keep seeing billboards honoring our health care workers for their sacrifices to keep us safe these days. I guess that’s nice, but if we really want to honor them, we should start listening to what they’re telling us and wear masks.
Why? Because research and anecdotal evidence tell us that masks can save lives. It’s that simple. Do they offer perfect protection? No. Are they fun and awesome to wear? Nope. They do a bang-up job of preventing infection, though. That’s why surgeons wear them when they’re cutting people open. Would you go into surgery if the surgeon refused to wear a mask?
This isn’t about personal liberty, people. This is basic public safety. Like wearing seat belts, or washing your hands after pooping.
Look me in the eye and explain how washing your hands after pooping destroys your freedom. I’ll thank you with some “freedom brownies” baked using my own unwashed hands. Then we can celebrate the end of hygienic oppression together!
Reality: E.coli doesn’t care about your politics, and neither does COVID-19. This isn’t a game of Republicans vs. Democrats. In this game, the only teams are Killer Murder Diseases vs. Humans.
The men and women fighting to save lives in Kootenai County need more than billboards. People are dying and the hospital is full. Medications are limited. It’s time to pull up your big-boy panties and put on a mask. Our medical workers are too busy right now for your tantrums.
BARB HALLETT
Coeur d’Alene
Wear the mask. Wear the mask. Wear the mask.
KARLA O’NEILL
Dr. Brian Tyson is one of the pioneers of early outpatient treatment for COVID-19, with zero death and just one short hospitalization out of some 1700 COVID-19 positive patients in Southern California. Our Editor should give him a call and editorialize his methods.
https://covexit.com/interview-with-brian-tyson-md-from-california-a-pioneer-of-outpatient-treatment-for-covid-19/
For you that have been unwilling to verify the failure of masks:
https://www.sott.net/article/434796-The-Science-is-Conclusive-Masks-and-Respirators-do-NOT-Prevent-Transmission-of-Viruses
Does not the fact that COVID-19 cases have gone up since the mask mandate was established prove to you masks don’t work?
ALLEN FULLETON
Hayden
I worked on a project in Papua New Guinea. It is interesting that the uncivilized villages in that country have more insight toward a situation like the COVID-19 than some of our PHD board members do.
Recognizing that medical support is not just not “down the street,” the village tribal leaders would position a pagan symbol at the village entrance that means to all citizen and visitors that you don’t go anywhere until the crisis is over. If you violate the mandate, you are kicked out of the village.
We can do better and wear masks, and they should be mandated by our leaders.
WILHELM
Coeur d’Alene
As a citizen of Coeur dAlene with an 82-year-old mother, I am distressed that the mask mandate was repealed right when we need it most. It is NOT a violation of anyone’s rights to ask each of us to do one small thing for the greater good.
Just this weekend, we are shoveling our walks to prevent others from falling and harming themselves. So too does wearing a simple face covering protect those around us.
I am begging our elected officials to listen to health care professionals and lead by example, which is their job as elected representatives of ALL of us. Thank you.
TAMARA ROBERTSON
Coeur d’Alene
I read the article in the CDA Press on Saturday about Panhandle Health’s decision to rescind the mask mandate and the impending decision before the CDA city council to implement one. I have been compelled to speak up, as council member Miller encouraged the “silent majority” to do.
PLEASE — vote to implement a city-wide mask mandate. Please revisit the presentations made by Drs. Scoggins and Hoopman at the Panhandle Health district meeting last Thursday to hear reasoned, rational, science-based explanations about the importance of reinstating the mandate. I have close friends who work at the Kootenai Health hospital, and they share that the hospital is bursting at the seams, with ED wait times nearing 10 hours and capacity nearing 100%. Our community has experienced a COVID surge, and we need to revisit the importance of flattening the curve. Remember when that was the battle cry across the country during the initial outbreak? We here in Kootenai County really didn’t see the COVID case numbers rising, so there wasn’t a sense of urgency in March and April. NOW THERE IS.
I want to believe that you, the Panhandle Health district and the local police department can put your heads together and problem-solve an approach to this public health crisis that keeps our most vulnerable safe and is enforceable. We need to make what is hidden more visible, namely, our shrinking hospital capacity and Emergency Department wait times. What if businesses regularly posted ED wait times and hospital capacity on their doors along with the appeal to wear a mask, wash hands and social distance? Perhaps that data could influence folks to take mask-wearing more seriously.
KRISTI RINEHART
Coeur d’Alene